MTF
[PuristS]
13383
Some frank "truths"
unpollo2
Thanks for the questions.
To answer your last question.....
Brand executives that cannot be named, from a number of 'haute horlogerie' brands, have told me after a few beers that:
They do not make money from repair services despite customers complaining about high charges.
From business viewpoint, it is not a revenue centre but a cost centre.
The most complaints they have internally are about the complainants.
Strictly from a business profit viewpoint, a repair department is troublesome.
On the other hand, the older brands and any brand that thinks they want to be long-term, have to maintain reputation of their watches and future functioning. So, they maintain a service department to reduce incidents of Frankenwatches and mauled minute repeaters. 
All the usual stuff about confidence to buy, feel-good, patrimony, pride, auction prices, long term investment, legacy, inheritance, etc, apply, of course.
Regards
MTF
Patek service times from a business perspective
we have all heard of crazy service times from 3 months to a year. my question is from a business point. 1- how many people would be deterred from buying a Patek due to this outrageous wait time 2- how hard would it be to scale up the service centers to sp...
All questions are relevant.
I guess that it is not that easy to find competent watch makers. I saw in AP Boutique in Singapore a fully qualified watch maker who needed an forty five minutes to extend the bracelet of a new RO. Or in a Blancpain Boutique their watch maker could not pu...
quicker
Every service I have had with Henri Stern the watch was completed well in advance of the estimated time.
A long time ago
I was dealing with a very bad AD, nowadays a former AD. Those days I had a long delay. When taking care of services through Patek Philippe Geneva & London Salons, I have been 100% satisfied with the - speed - quality of the work - pricing Best, Kari
One issues I think is the issue of 'qualified* personnel...
which - frankly speaking - needs to be as much qualified - perhaps even more so - than those watchmakers who produce the watches. The reason is that service watchmakers not only need to identify the cause of problems (and thus need a more broad training, ...
Difficult to answer and to give a right statistics but I'll try to give an answer.
The service performance is something we look closely at when it is time to ask for one and sometimes, but in a much lesser extent, when we buy a watch. To begin with, let me say that many of the questions you ask may apply to every brands, even the smalle...
You must own two watches!
Simple solution. Own two watches... A lot of the people on this forum have another watch already. And many Patek Philippe owners have another watch they can fall back on because most Patek Philippe owners had another watch prior to their Patek Philippe. 1...
Some frank "truths"
unpollo2 Thanks for the questions. To answer your last question..... Brand executives that cannot be named, from a number of 'haute horlogerie' brands, have told me after a few beers that: They do not make money from repair services despite customers comp...
this is contradictory to car dealerships with repair centers
car dealerships without repair centers attached have a hard time surviving. the repair centers are revenue generators that provide steady cashflow for both overheads. interesting that watch service centers are not. i wonder, would it be possible to pay a ...
Independent Repair Centres use this business model
Yes. That is why there are "Independent" repair centres boasting accreditation by some brands or with ex-personnel of brands. The next questions you ask are the bulk of the replies you already got on this thread: Do you trust your repairer? What does accr...
patek time to service
I would save my money. Dr. Kol and watch-er above seem to indicate service times are no problem. lol
Indeed, service times are not a problem.
I do not want to take the role of defending the Brand. However, I have noticed that very often the claims are originating from places from where the AD need to send the watch to Geneva. In these cases we need to separate the service itself and the logisti...